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Rilind of Halych
Biography The story of Lebedin and Gemma's marriage is nothing that would be written in a great romance novel. It was arranged when Lebedin was 23, in 276 Lebedin met Gemma for the first time and was reasonably pleased, Gemma would look good on his arm, and with having five brothers, would most likely produce an heir easily. Over two years into their marriage, Gemma gave birth to the couple's first child in 280 HE, a daughter that they named Lybid Polina. Lebedin, as much as he was eager to show off his pretty wife and healthy child, slipped easily back into the womanizer he had been before the marriage. It took three years for the couple to have their second child, Olga Inna was born in 283 HE and was almost the polar opposite of Lybid. The same year, one of Lebedin's mistresses (Vassa) gave birth to a son that Lebedin doted on, setting up a secondary family in a townhouse in the capital to keep the mistress and her child. At this point in their marriage, Lesya noticed the drifting of Lebedin away from his family and had a frank talk with him about appearances and reminding him of his duty to the family to produce an heir with Gemma and not some other woman. Eventually she wore him down enough for him to start visiting his wife's bed with regularity, much to his mistresses' chagrins. Eventually, in 285, Gemma gave birth to Rilind Mikhail, heir to Halych. Rilind was the long awaited heir of Halych, and Lebedin felt his birth was years past due. His birth was an easy one, and he was immediately handed off to a wet-nurse upon birth, Gemma having done her part. Ri was a fairly healthy baby, he did have bouts of colic and once when he was two he got pneumonia. It was touch and go, they did not think the young boy would live, but he pulled through just fine. Rilind's birth was a noted change in the family dynamic, Gemma, having fulfilled her primary duty as wife, started to socialize more, as Lebedin moved upward in his appointments. Lebedin reacted the same way, mostly handing off the raising of Rilind to Lesya and spent more time with his own friends and mistresses, though visiting his wife enough to keep their marriage from failing completely and keeping Lesya off his case. Because of this, Rilind views his aunt as more of a parent than either of his biological parents. In 293 HE, the last children for the couple were born, twins, Edlyn Dominika and Fedir Uri. Both handed off to nurses within days of their birth, Gemma desiring to get back to socializing and planning her elder daughters' futures in the capitol. The three younger children found themselves forming their own family unit with their nurses and nannies and Lesya as their parental figure, despite Rilind being six years older than the twins. Lesya was very concerned about their education, especially the boys since Lebedin wasn't, which had been a surprise to her. She was a constant presence in the three's lives as children, teaching Rilind basic combat and riding, to ensure his success as a knight of the realm. She gave Rilind special attention when it was discovered he was left handed, determined to train him to be a right handed fighter so he would not be at a disadvantage. When Fedir was old enough to join in with the exercises he did, and eventually Edlyn went from interested spectator to participant with Lesya hoping all three of them would try for their knighthood. In 295 HE Lybid married the heir to Kostre. In the same year, Lebedin's mistresses Lati gave birth to a bastard daughter. Another change for the family this year was Rilind beginning his first page year in the capital. Rilind's page years were pretty smooth. Rilind had always been good in his classes, his teachers remarked at how bright he was, and suggested that maybe knighthood was not the best path for him, that he should go to the Royal University and train to be a diplomat like his father. Rilind (and his father) would have none of it, and Ri continued his page training. Ri made many good friends during his page years, among them _____ of ____ and _________ of _________, two young men from good families that he still talks to this day. Rilind became a squire in October of 299. His knight master was Andriy of Svitiaz, who was an acquaintance of Lesya from her squire days. Sir Andriy was a stern knight master, he made his expectations known, and stuck to them, but he was fair and a darn good knight. Rilind learned many things from him, from how to survive in the snow to how to fix gear in the field with limited supplies. Rilind also learned that Andriy was somewhat of a manwhore. Svitiaz was single, he had never been married, never had the desire to be married, and as the second son, he did not have any pressures to get married, instead, he had numerous partners, some of them long term, most of them short term. It was in this environment that Rilind was taught that a 'real man' gets around. His squire years were not terribly eventful, with the exception of Rilind learning fluent Scanran (his third and forth languages, he learned Carthaki when he was a Page) during these years, both the modern spoken Scanran, and older "High Scanran" that was no longer in use but very handy for looking at old records. Rilind had a close, but often tense relationship with his knight master because Svitiaz preferred to be out riding his horse and doing grand deeds, and his squire had a thirst for knowledge, and most of that knowledge could be best learned from books. Rilind's mind was sharp, he was easily bored by days in the saddle, so he took up reading while riding, to learn all he could. At the end of the summer, Rilind was nearing his knighthood and Fedir his first year as a page, both eager to learn more. Edlyn returned to Halych and spent another long winter and spring waiting impatiently for her brothers to return to her. Early in the spring of 303 HE, Lebedin's mistress Katerina in the capital gave birth to a son, though he was more put out having to deal with another child, he easily strayed from her to another woman, eventually taking his mistresses and child out of the townhouse to install the new one. He ensured this one had a charm at all times, refusing to deal with raising a young family again. Rilind spent the first few months of having his shield bumming around the capital and entering tournaments and stuff that were being held for the Midwinter celebrations. After sitting on his bum for a few months, with Maren being a pretty peaceful country and all, he didn't have any wars to go fight, he decided that he wanted to explore more of his intellectual tendencies. He spoke to his father about following in his footsteps and becoming an ambassador. His father recognized his intellect and took him on, since Rilind had earned his knighthood there was nothing standing in his way. He began working with his father on a regular basis in February of 304. Nothing really interesting happened between early 304 and early 305. He continued to work with his father despite their poor relationship until his father's death. Lebedin became the Ambassador to Tortall in 306, and the family relocated. During the journey Ri and Edlyn managed to find their previous closeness easily on the journey there, acting almost as if their years apart and estrangement hadn't happened. The two of them made a merry little pair, separate from Lebedin, Gemma, Leysa and the servants. They always rode together, talking and having a great time, quickly becoming the best of friends. The family settled in well, with the Halych's living in the embassy and Lebedin's mistress set up in a nice town house, something no one else knew. After being introduced to court, the family started doing what they did best, Ri whoring, Lebedin slacking, Gemma socializing and Edlyn attempting to stay out of trouble. In April of 308 Rilind started a relationship with Isadora of Milton, a rather loose noblewoman known for her tongue, which was both talented at ripping people to shreds with her impressive vocabulary and other more.. pleasurable activities. They slept together, kind of in a relationship until September 308, when they broke up in a spectacular fashion, a fight which was gossip fodder for weeks. After the break up (and before really, ever since he got to Tortall) Rilind continued to drink, gamble and whore, while still getting his work done. In the new year, Rilind met Bellona, a widow whom he was acquainted with from court but had never had a devoted conversation with. At their first meeting, Bellona and Rilind managed to steal a couch from the palace, taking it to her townhouse in Upmarket. At their second meeting, Bellona was caught by him melting an ice sculpture to get it to fall on an annoying courtier. It was clear they would continue to meet in strange circumstances and started to send daily notes to each other, flirting through February and March until they gave into the sexual tension and slept together. The lighthearted fling though, suddenly came to a screeching halt in April 309 when Rilind's father died of a stroke at dinner. He was deeply affected by this, he did actually love his father despite his many lacking qualities, and emotionally shut himself off to deal with the stress that suddenly befell him. One day he was the 23 year old assistant, and the next he was the Count of Halych and Ambassador to Tortall. If it hadn't been for Bellona, Ri wouldn't have been able to pull through it with his sanity in tact, he was so focused for being strong for his sister, and his mother and aunt and everyone else that he withdrew into himself completely, and was wound so tightly that he looked as if you as much as touched him he would explode. Bellona managed to talk some sense into him, convincing him to rest, and stood guard so the servants and others in the house wouldn't bother him. It was during this time that Rilind realized he couldn’t live without Bellona. She might have been a new widow with three children, but Ri knew that she was the right fit for him, that she could put up with his obsessive compulsive tenancies and stick by him. Rilind asked Bellona to marry him and in late May they were married in a slightly rushed ceremony, with have their guests suspecting Bellona was pregnant and the other half thinking it was a rush, hasty decision Rilind would soon regret. However the couple were clearly in love and proved it over and over again during the first year of their marriage. In December of 309, the couple announced Bellona was pregnant, the pregnancy was not planned, the two thinking they were covered with a pregnancy charm. However Bellona embraced pregnancy again, and gave birth to a healthy boy, Aleksandr, in July of 310 HE. Rilind was extremely happy to be a father, he wasn't quite expecting it so soon, but he was happy all the same and is fairly ridiculous when it comes to all four of his children, doting on them especially Alazne and Aleksandr, both of which have him wrapped around their tiny fingers. Physical description Rilind is tall and not exactly thin, but he's not fat either, he is in good proportion for his height. He is in good shape, he does have some muscle definition, but he is clearly not a body builder nor one who spends large amounts of time building his muscles. He works out, mostly to clear his mind, and enjoys jogging, he jogs nearly every evening. Because he tends to do more aerobic workouts than building muscle mass, it is mostly for him to stay fit and healthy rather than build strength or bulging muscles. There is no denying that Rilind is a handsome man, something that has often been commented on, usually relating to some sort of trouble he had gotten into. Rilind's features are quite masculine. He has a broad forehead, square in shape with a well defined hair line. His hair is dark brown and quite, but in the sun it has definite overtones of auburn in it, and his eyes are a clear blue. Rilind takes after his father in the darker coloring. Usually Ri keeps it cropped short, but occasionally he grows it out for his wife. Rilind's nose is strong with a slight cleft at the end and he has lips a bit on the thinner side. His jaw is strong and rather square, and his chin is defined and rather squarish on the end with a cleft. Rilind is usually clean shaven but he does forget some days, and his beard is more auburn than his hair, but it is still far more brown than red. Personality and traits Rilind's personality is hard to categorize. On one hand he is the serious, studious ambassador, on the other hand he is a twenty five year old young man who is always down for adventure and harassing his siblings. A lot of the time he has problems fitting these extremes into one life. He is fiercely overprotective of his siblings, attempting to be the father they never had, but at the same time he wants to enjoy spending time with them as their older brother, without the pressure to give them a good example. Rilind has a lot of issues when it comes to his parents. As a small child they fairly ignored him, leaving him to be raised by his aunt and nurses, and they went off to have parties and their own agendas. As a youngster he did not understand why his parents were not around, so he desperately tried to gain their attention. It was not in his nature to act out (he was too afraid of what Auntie L would do to him) so instead he attempted to be the best he could, in hopes that Auntie L would tell his parents. His aunt already had set high standards for him, because he was the heir of Halych and all, so he became determined to beat them. In the end all he wanted was his parents to say they were proud of him, and to this day they have never even hinted at approval of him or his actions. As he grew up, his aunt started to place more and more pressure on him to be the best, what had started out as a small boy trying to please his parents turned into a boy with too many pressures placed on him too young. Rilind never got the chance to play in the mud, or put frogs in his pockets, he was always working with Lesya on his form for swordsmanship (she was very upset when she discovered that he was left handed and was not quiet about how disappointed she was), and how he needed to live up to his responsibilities as a male from the old and most noble house of Halych. He grew up to be a serious child, always more concerned with what others thought and what they wanted than thinking about himself. Ri used reading as an escape from the pressures placed on him by his family, not that he realized this at the time. He learned to read and write at a young age and always loved it. When he entered page training it was quickly established that he was academically the brightest boy there. Some of his instructors felt that he should not be going for his shield but instead at the Royal University in studying to become a diplomat like his father. Rilind did not want this (and neither did his father or his aunt), he was a ten year old boy completely under the spell of the glory of knighthood and was determined to stick it out because that was what he thought his parents wanted, even though he would most likely have been happier at University. Rilind was not the best knight (something that his aunt was quite vocal about, lamenting on her failure as his first instructor), mostly due to his more intellectual leanings, but he was good enough. Due to his great desire to learn things, and his almost irrational desire to make his parents and aunt happy, he practiced diligently so he would be a good knight. He ended up being good, but not the best by any means. His preferred method would be the bow, because being left handed does not affect it at all, and to this day is an excellent marksman. He is an average swordsman, better with his left than his right. Rilind is academically brilliant, it was a real shame he did not go to university. He learns languages quickly, at the age of twenty four he is quadlingual and working on his 5th (Common, Scanran, High Scanran, Carthaki and learning Kyprish). Learning gives him more joy than pretty much anything else. He is a voracious reader and will read his way through a library in relatively short order. One he grew older and became a squire, he focused on his academic nature more than his knightly training. His knight master was not pleased by this, constantly saying he should have been taken by a desk knight. This prompted him to become more private, pulling back into himself and keeping his more intellectual leanings to himself. Ri taught himself things from books, focusing on it when his knight master was out drinking or something with his friends. Rilind took two things away from this squiredom, the first being that 'real men sleep around'. His knight master was a manwhore, and Rilind followed in his footsteps. Ri figured that it was one thing that Andriy couldn't yell at him for. It all started about a month after Rilind's sixteenth birthday, when Andriy and Rilind were up by Fort Jirokan and somehow the subject came up that Ri had not had sex yet. Andriy took this as a personal affront, he felt he was being a total failure as a knight master, so he fairly dragged poor Rilind to his favorite bordello and set him up with a nice prostitute named Nadya. Rilind decided that sex was quite enjoyable and it became one of his new recreational activities. Because of this Ri became something of a manwhore. He visited prostitutes frequently, but preferred not to bed pros if he had a choice, having a specific set of rules regarding the women he slept with. He would not sleep with virgins, he thought the whole idea is kind of not cool and it isn't something that really did it for him, plus they end up getting overly attached and it’s just a huge mess, better off to avoid the whole situation. He preferred to be with women who have experience, so it is better for both of them. He did his best not to sleep with married women, but sometimes things happen. Ri had no problems sleeping with slaves or servants, but it was always consensual, Ri does not hold with rape and feels that rapists should be severely punished. Ri was adamant that the women he sleeps with always have a pregnancy charm, because he does not want a legion of bastard children like his father. He tended to go more toward one night stands having been burned by more lasting relationships, and is pretty good about making sure that the women know it is a one night stand type of deal. However, all of that changed when he met his wife. Now Rilind is a reformed manwhore, and very content to be with just one woman, his wife, until the end of his days. This fed into Rilind's issues about not being 'good enough'. Sleeping around is something he could control. It was something he is good at. His sex life was the one aspect of his life that he felt that his parents had no right to judge or even think about, so he did what he wants. This was pretty much the only time he felt he can do whatever he wants and he wasn't going to let anyone down, and the only time he gets the attention and approval he secretly craves. He tends to keep all his issues hidden. The second major thing he got out of his squiredom was his drug use. Ever since he was seventeen, Ri has been a habitual smoker of marijuana. At first he started smoking to help deal with the pain and nausea associated with his migraines, but now he smokes recreationally, usually for stress relief. He tries to keep it a secret outside of family, in Tortall only his sister and wife know that he smokes for a fact, and one or two close friends in Maren. Ri also has a wicked sense of humor, but he reserves this for his family and close friends. He likes to tease people, more specifically his siblings. With his siblings he is always ready for a joke, or a trick or a game. He likes to sit in the library and play cards or other games with them, especially his little sister Mika. Part of him really fights this, he feels that he should act with the dignity associated with his name and rank, but at the same time he did not have the classic childhood phase, he was always pushed to grow up by his parents and his aunt. Now in his mid twenties he is still trying to reconcile these two parts of his personality, part of him is still young, wanting to just have fun, and another part is trying so hard to be serious and please his parents, specifically his father. To outsiders he may come across as a little stiff, he tends to wait and observe people and judge how -they- will react before he does something. Making friends has never been easy for him, due to his private nature. He is pleasant to everyone, and will chat people up that he knows, but he won't make a move to take it past the level of an acquaintance. He will be more than happy to go riding with people, dance at balls, and hang out, but he is not going to invite them over for dinner with the family. He can be realty high brow when dealing with the university types, or if he is with a group of young wild noblemen, he can be just as wild and crazy as them. In all, he is a flexible sort who takes a 'wait and see' approach to life. Rilind is very overprotective of his little sister Edlyn. He is determined to keep her safe since their parents did not appear to care about her at all. In some ways Rilind is more of a father to her than Lebedin was. Ri was opposed to her first betrothal, feeling she was far too young for the match, but Lebedin didn't care. Once they were in Tortall, their father promptly forgot about Edlyn again, and Ri did his best to give her the attention she needed. Now that Lebedin is gone, and Gemma has returned to Maren, Ri is trying to do best by hi sister. Rilind's biggest fault is that he's impossibly stubborn, almost to the point of cutting off his nose to spite his face. He can be so incredibly pig headed at times that he will just dig in his heels and become basically unmovable. This will most definitely become a problem for him later in life if he is going to pursue a career in the diplomatic field. Mostly Rilind's stubbornness comes out when dealing with his family, Ri is stubborn to the point of being unreasonable about his sister and courting. He doesn't think that anyone is good enough for her. Rilind also argued with his father a lot, mostly about money and his father's infidelity. They just generally clashed in personality; Lebedin was really jovial and care free while his son tended to be serious most of the time, at least around Lebedin. Once Rilind has made up his mind about something, that's the way it is, it won't change. Despite their differences, Rilind missed his father after he died, and genuinely mourned him. Skills and abilities Magical abilities Physical/mental skills Relationships Family Friends Romance Ivanka of Rassi :A pretty heiress from northern Maren, Ri dated Ivanka for the second half of 304 and the beginning of 305. Ri was very attracted to her, she was more than one of his numerous flings. Their relationship ended suddenly with him being dumped for lack of a better word, in Feburary of 305. Worst of all, she dumped him for one of his friends from his squire days Sir _____ of _______. The two married shortly after and announced that Ivanka was pregnant three months after they married. Isadora of Milton : Rilind began dating Isadora in April of 308. She had a reputation for being rather loose and known for her tongue, which was both talented at ripping people to shreds with her impressive vocabulary and other more...pleasurable activities. They slept together, kind of in a relationship until September 308, when they broke up in a spectacular fashion, a fight which was gossip fodder for weeks, with Isadora accusing Rilind of sleeping with his sister. That was the only time that Rilind had gotten close to being violent towards a woman, and it was all he could do to keep himself from punching her. Trivia Notes and references See also External links Category:Marenite Nobility Category:Diplomats Category:Noble Category:Halych